by Jim Butcher
Which, presumably, made him approximately the same age as the tale of Beowulf. That made him better than a thousand years old. Minimum.
No wonder he could do things with magic I’d never seen before.
“You know what, Hoss Dresden?”
“What?”
“You always treated me pretty good. Even when you were scared. Takes courage to do that to someone so different from you.”
“Not so hard to be polite to someone who can punch me to the moon.”
“Your personal history says otherwise,” River Shoulders said, his tone gently teasing. “You pretty good about defying folk who need defying. And you’re getting better about figuring out who those folk are. Listens-to-Wind says you had a tough childhood.”
“Lot of people do,” I said. “I was lucky to get a good teacher. Don’t know about how much courage I have.”
“Seem to have a bit,” he replied. “Now, courage ain’t everything. But you build everything else on it.” He eyed me, and his features were both troubled and resolved, the expression of someone who had made a hard decision. “Sometime, you want to learn more, come find me.”
“Should I blast calls and pound my staff on trees?” I asked lightly.
His eyes sparkled far back under his brows. “Maybe give my woman a call,” he said. “Be quicker. And a little less silly-looking.”
I frowned and said, “You’re serious.”
“Listens-to-Wind says you’re a good investment. Just got some rough edges and need to learn more. Especially with that thing Mab hung on your shoulders.”
I frowned. “Listens-to-Wind made an offer like that, too.”
“Sure,” River said. “But I taught him. And he’s just about gotten to the end of his path.” He looked uncomfortable. “Lot of the wizards who matter are near the end. Hanging on hard.”
I tilted my head at him. “Why?”
“Not the right person, time, or place to tell you, starborn.”
I pursed my lips. “Six hundred and sixty-six years,” I said experimentally.
River’s craggy brows rose, itself a feat of superhuman strength. “Huh,” he said. “You learned some things.”
“I learned that,” I said.
“We pretty close to that time,” he said. “Kinda promised not to tell you anything. Sucks. Necessary. But if I was you, I’d think hard about taking my offer.” River’s eyes flickered toward the door, and he started putting his spectacles carefully back on. “Someone coming.”
It was a good ten seconds before I heard the whisper of light steps on stone, and then Molly swept into the room. The Winter Lady wore an opalescent formfitting gown that very heavily emphasized that she was my best friend’s daughter and that I ought not to notice that about her, dammit.
“Harry,” she said, and then paused, eyeing River Shoulders. “Uh, that is, Harry Dresden.”
River Shoulders went from sitting down to standing in a light, liquid motion. “You want to insult me, you going to have to try something worse than calling me hairy, Miss Lady Winter,” he said politely, and bowed a little at the waist. “If you will excuse me. Miss. Hoss.”
“Good talk,” I said. “Next time, a fire and steaks.”
River Shoulders nodded and moved out of the room in long, silent, relaxed strides that carried him at about the same pace as me when I went jogging.
Molly waited until he had left and said, “What the hell, Harry? What are you doing up here?”
“Liaising,” I said. “Listens-to-Wind asked me to keep an eye out for him.”
“Well, I need you to do it some more,” she said. “The fiddler decided he liked the look of Warden Yoshimo and tried to lay a whammy on her.”
I stood up. “Hell’s bells. Did it work?”
“Not for long. But it should be dealt with openly, in front of everyone, by you.”
Right. As Mab’s nominal enforcer, I was the guy she would send to, well, enforce the Accords, unless the infraction had been committed by someone out of my league.
“Okay,” I said. “Show me.”
She looked pointedly at my arm. I offered it to her, and we started back down to the main hall. “Molls, I talked to your dad today.”
“Oh?” she asked, her tone utterly neutral.
“He says you haven’t been home to visit in a while.”
She glanced surreptitiously at me. “I’ve been busy. There’s been no time.”
I stopped and perforce she stopped with me. I frowned at her and said, “Kid. Make time.”
Her voice turned sharper. “You aren’t my father, Harry. You aren’t my mentor anymore, either.”
“No,” I said agreeably. “But I am your friend.”
“We can talk about this later,” she said, tugging my arm.
I didn’t budge. “Now seems to be a good time. Your family misses you. And you owe them better than this, Molls.”
“ Harry …”
“Just tell me you’ll visit. The word of the Winter Lady is good.”
“Harry, I can’t,” she said.
“Why not?”
She fretted her lower lip. “It’s complicated.”
“Going to Sunday dinner isn’t complicated.” I turned to her and put a hand on her shoulder. “You’ve got something precious. You’ve got a family. And they love you. And you’re probably going to live for a very long time without them. It’s idiotic to miss the chance to be with them while you can.”
She looked away from me, and tears made her eyes glisten.
“Come on,” I said, gently. “Don’t get all famous and forget the people you started with, faerie princess. They’ve got to be proud to have a celebrity in the family.”
Molly closed her eyes entirely as the tears fell.
Then she said, in a tiny voice, “They don’t know.”
I blinked exaggeratedly. “What?”
“I … I haven’t told them. About being the Winter Lady.”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “I know. Stars and stones, Molls, what were you thinking?”
She shook her head. “It’s … They’re going to see it as a bargain made with dark powers. If they found out …”
“Not if,” I said. “When. You can’t keep things like this hidden forever.” She shook her head wordlessly.
“It needs to be done,” I said. “You owe them the truth, at least.”
“I can’t,” she hissed. She opened her eyes and met mine. “It’s Papa. I’ve wanted to tell him, so many times. But he wouldn’t understand. I just … just imagine the look on his face when he knows … and it hurts, Harry.” She closed her eyes and shook her head again. “I can’t face that. I can’t.”
She broke off, and her tears fell in silence.
It hurt to see her suffering.
So I gave her a hug.
She clung to me, hard.
“This is hurting you. And it’s hurting them, too, even if they don’t know it yet.”
“I know,” she said.
I said gently, firmly, “It has to be done.”
“I can’t.”
“You can,” I said. “I’ll be there with you.”
She shuddered and clung to me. “I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You didn’t.”
The shudders eased after a few moments. “You will?”
“What are friends for?”
Her weight leaned harder against me for a moment, in gratitude. “Thank you.”
“Anytime.”
We went back down to the main hall, where I immediately walked across the room to the musicians’ alcove, reached up, and ripped down the swath of cloth covering it with an enormous rasp of tearing silk.
The music stopped instantly, and the entire gathering paused to stare at me with lifted eyebrows. I noted that Yoshimo, surrounded by her fellow Wardens and the Senior Council members, looked up with pained, furious eyes.
Behind the curtain, half a dozen Sidhe sat with musical instruments now silent in their hands and stared at me with their large
jewel-like eyes. The ruling class of Faerie, the Sidhe were slim, beautiful, ancient, and deadly. The tallest among them was a male prettier than nine out of ten women on magazine covers, and he had silver-white hair and amber eyes. He carried a violin in one hand.
Without a word, I called upon Winter for strength and kicked him in the chest before he could rise fully to his feet.
The Sidhe crashed backward through the rest of the chamber orchestra, knocking over chairs and smashing instruments, and hit the stone wall with a crunch of broken bones. He staggered off the wall and fell to the ground, trying to scream in pain and unable to find enough breath to get it done.
I turned to Molly, hooked a thumb over my shoulder, and said, “That guy? He seemed the most douche-like.”
Molly blinked once and nodded.
I nodded back and turned toward the fallen Sidhe. “These people are guests, under guest-right,” I said in a voice meant to carry through the room.
“No harm was done,” spat one of the other Sidhe, a female holding a cello. “It was but a game.”
“Game over,” I said. I raised my right hand, called upon Winter again, and thundered, “Infriga!”
In an instant, the air screamed in protest as near-absolute-zero cold rushed out of my hand and enveloped the fallen fiddler in a block of glacier blue ice. Even the other Winter Sidhe recoiled from the savage bite of the cold and wound up with their hair, ears, and fingertips coated in ice. All of them stared at me, frozen, ba-dump-bump, ching.
None of them moved.
Except the fiddler. His eyes moved, desperate and agonized.
I turned to find Molly approaching in full Winter Lady mode, her steps decisive, her posture regal. I inclined my head to her and said, “My lady, what is your will?”
“This sort of behavior cannot be tolerated,” she said, her voice carrying to the entire room. “Though he is not one of mine, I offer my most sincere regrets to the White Council and to Warden Yoshimo for this incident.” She looked around the room and said, “Baron Marcone has given his permission, as host, for me to deal with this matter. Place this lawbreaker on the buffet table. An ice sculpture is appropriate. Should he survive to thaw, he is banished from Winter lands and holdings upon pain of death.”
She walked up to the block of ice and crouched down to face the fiddler’s wide eyes. She simply stared for a moment, cold and icy, and then said, in a very calm, very hard tone, “It’s not nice to do that to girls at parties.”
She rose and made an imperious gesture with one hand. Evidently, she knew how to convey that she meant business. Half a dozen Einherjaren in their red caterers’ coats immediately moved in, picked up the block of ice, and started carrying it toward the buffet table.
“Excellent,” Molly said. She turned to the room and said, “Please excuse this disruption, honored ladies and gentlemen. I regret its necessity.” She regarded the rest of the musicians, smiled, and said, with a very slight emphasis on the last word, “Please resume your duties.”
And the music, altered considerably, started up again tout de suite.
The Sidhe are predators. One does not show predators weakness or hesitation. It’s the easiest way to communicate with them. Molly had learned all about how to get her message across.
Within a minute, Lara swept up to us and gave Molly a polite bow of her head. Molly returned it.
“Lady Winter,” Lara said, “I need a breath of air outside. I wonder if you would loan me your Knight as an escort for a few minutes. I shall return him directly.”
Molly just stared at Lara, without expression. Then she moved her chin in the barest nod.
“Lovely,” Lara said. She gave me a radiant smile and said, “Shall we?”
I offered her my arm, and the two of us left as the chatter of conversation resumed. Though I was ostensibly escorting her, Lara directed me with firm pressure on my arm, until we were outside the castle and walking down the sidewalk toward the other houses in the neighborhood.
I glanced at her and saw her jaw set with determination, and sharp excitement in her eyes. When we were several hundred feet from the castle, she said, “I did it.”
“Did what?” I asked.
“I created options,” she said. “It was always possible that Etri was holding Thomas because he wanted a ransom, but that apparently is not the case. He wants blood. I wasn’t able to convince Etri to drop the charges against Thomas. But between Cristos and me, we convinced him that holding him prisoner in his own demesne made it appear as though vengeance was more important to him than justice.”
I lifted my eyebrows. “How does that change anything?”
“Baron Marcone, as host of this gathering, offered to hold my brother prisoner until the matter had been settled through an Accorded emissary.” Her eyes flashed. “My brother is being transferred to the castle.”
“Still don’t see how that changes anything,” I said.
“Negotiations begin in earnest tomorrow night,” she said. “Here. Not in svartalf territory.”
I took a slow breath. “Oh no. Tell me you’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking.”
“My brother will be here, in a building I know, and everyone will be preoccupied,” she said. “And I won’t be violating svartalf borders. I can work something out with Marcone after. He’s reasonable about business.”
She stopped and turned to face me, slate grey eyes as hard as stone.
“I tried to be reasonable. Etri declined to meet me halfway. It’s time to create a better position. So, tomorrow night, while everyone is distracted, I’m taking my brother back. I’m going through anyone who gets in the way.”
Oh, Hell’s bells. I knew what came next.
So much for the diplomatic solution.
Her teeth showed very white as she saw my dawning comprehension. “And I’m calling in my second favor. You, Sir Knight, are going to help me.”
Chapter
Twenty-two
Is she insane?” Karrin demanded.
I threw up my hands halfheartedly.
Her blue eyes stared hard at me for a moment before she said, in a calm, practical voice, “Oh God. You want to do it.”
“I don’t want to do it,” I said. “But he’s my brother.”
She lifted her good hand and pressed her fist against her nose. “God, Harry, there are times when I could just choke you.”
“Yeah,” I said tiredly. “Me, too.”
Her grandmother’s clock ticked steadily on the mantel over the little steel-lined gas fireplace, which must have been one of the fanciest things in the neighborhood when the house was first built. Karrin had been cleaning that day, which was a bad sign. It was one of her go-to reactions for stress. If she started cleaning the guns, I would know it was really bad.
“Things are already tense enough,” she said. “If this disrupts the peace talks, there are going to be consequences.”
“I know.”
“My read is that this whole conference is Marcone’s baby.”
I grunted agreement. “He’s actually doing what Cristos only thinks he is,” I said. “Building alliances.”
“And if you screw up Marcone’s plan?” Karrin asked bluntly.
“His reputation takes a hit,” I said.
“And he will respond to that.”
“Marcone is acutely aware of the concept of payback,” I agreed.
Karrin glowered. “I don’t know all of the beings you deal with very well, Harry. But I know Marcone. And he scares me.”
I stared at her for a moment.
I’m pretty sure there wasn’t anyone else on the planet Karrin would say those words to.
She returned my gaze for a moment, and I had to look away. She knew what she’d just shown me. She’d decided to do it.
“Hey,” I said, and went over to sit next to her on the couch. I put an arm around her. She fit very neatly into the space against my side. She pressed her cheek against my chest for a moment.
“What
happens if you tell Lara no?” she asked.
“ It … hurts,” I said.
“You’ve done pain before,” she said. “What will they do to you?”
“Mab is also all about payback,” I said. “She’d act.” I frowned and said, “Hell. If I get caught helping Lara disrupt the Accords, as her own damned enforcer, she’ll have to act, too. Quickly. And publicly.”
“Couldn’t the White Council tell her to back off?”
I thought about that for a second and then said, “Maybe they could. Question is if they would. Pretty sure the answer is no.”
“Useless,” she muttered.
“I’m not exactly their poster child,” I said. “It’s likely they’d wrap me up in a bow for Mab to keep from crossing her.”
“Can’t your grandfather put a stop to that?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so. Last time, he had Martha Liberty’s support. I don’t know if he would, this time around. If that’s the case, the Senior Council vote would definitely go against me. So he’d have to leave it to an open vote of the whole Council and … well …”
“Useless,” Murphy repeated, more firmly. She pushed away from me, hauled herself to her feet, and hobbled out of the room stiffly on her cane.
When she came back in, she was carrying a blue plastic pistol case. She set it down on the table and sat down. Then she clicked open the case decisively.
Only instead of removing a pistol, she pulled out a handheld oscillating multitool and tossed me the end of its power cord. “Plug that in.”
I clambered around until I found the power strip between the couch and the end table, and did. Then I withdrew a bit. Wizards and technology don’t get along so well, but I’d been hitting new highs of self-restraint over the past few months. If I didn’t get close to something as simple as an electric motor, I probably wouldn’t screw it up, as long as I stayed calm. Probably. “What are you doing?” I asked.
Instead of answering, she snapped a saw blade onto the tool, flicked a switch that set it to buzzing, and immediately took the blade to the cast on her shoulder.
“Karrin,” I blurted, rising.
“Back off before you short it out,” she snapped. “Go stand over there in the kitchen. Go.”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I asked.